"So what about school?" Faith asked.

"School?" Buffy asked, a little taken aback by the question. "Oh. I. Ah. I haven't been going."

"Well it'd be a little hard to go now I think," Faith said thoughtfully, "but there's this really smart kid where I go. She does tutoring I think. Would you like me to see if she'll tutor you?"

"If it's not too much," Buffy said.

"It's ok Miss B," Faith said, "I'll see what I can do."

"Hey Red," Faith said casually, leaning against a locker near the small red headed girl.

"F-F-Faith.." the girl said weakly, her voice shaking, "what do you want?"

"I've got this friend," Faith said, relaxing her tough demeanour to something kinder, less intimidating. More how she was with Buffy, "I was wondering if you could help her out."

"What?" The red head asked.

"Tutor her."

"Sure, I mean… I guess I could."

"Great!" Faith said, effectively stopping the redhead's nervous babbling. "You can come home from school with me, meet her then."

"Sure…" the redhead said uncertainly, watching Faith as she wandered away.

"So, you must be Faith's friend," the redhead smiled uncertainly at Buffy.

"I'm Buffy," the blonde offered with a friendly, non-threatening smile.

"Hi Buffy, I'm Willow."

"That's a lovely name," Buffy commented as Willow proceeded to sit beside her, "it suits you."

Willow blushed a little. "Thanks."

"So, I heard you might need some help." Willow spoke after a while.

"Huh?"

"Tutoring."

"Yeah," Buffy agreed, the smile gone a moment before it returned to her face.

"Well, I can help with that. So, what do you think you'll need and maybe we could get started tomorrow."

"Everything," Buffy said, going on when she saw the confused look on Willow's face, "I don't go to school, and I haven't in a while."

"Oh, I see."

"She doesn't go to school apparently," Willow said, finishing telling her friends about her latest student.

"That's strange," commented Mr Giles, the community librarian, "it's pretty hard to get out of school. Good on for you tutoring her Willow."

"Hmm?"

"Education is very important," Mr Giles said, "if she's not going to school, at least she's getting a little from you."

"I wonder what she did," Xander said with a laugh.

"What?" Both Willow and Mr Giles turned to look at him.

"Well you did say it was pretty hard to get out of school, so she must have done something real bad."

"Not necessarily," Mr Giles said thoughtfully, "don't make assumptions Xander. There might be something going on in the background that we don't know about. It's not our place to judge."

"If there is, you know, something going on, I'm glad I can help her," Willow admitted.